Former United States President Joe Biden took the stage at the National Bar Association’s 100th Annual Awards Gala in Chicago to deliver remarks honoring the United States civil rights legacy, and the state of the country.

Speaking amid continual scrutiny around his physical and mental health, Biden played up the importance of a strong judicial branch, and characterized the US as at a moment in time that “makes us confront hard truths.”

“So many of you have fought to make this country live up to its highest ideals,” Biden said. “Not since the tumultuous days of the 1960s has this fight been so existential to who we are as a nation,